Aerobic exercise is a popular form of exercise that improves one's cardiovascular health by reducing blood pressure and providing other benefits to the human body. Aerobic exercise generally involves low intensity physical exertion over a long duration of time. Generally, the human body can adequately supply enough oxygen to meet the body's demands at the intensity levels involved with aerobic exercise. Popular forms of aerobic exercise include running, jogging, swimming, and cycling among others activities. In contrast, anaerobic exercise often involves high intensity exercises over a short duration of time. Popular forms of anaerobic exercise include strength training and short distance running.
Many choose to perform aerobic exercises indoors, such as in a gym or their home. Often, an individual uses an aerobic exercise machine to achieve an aerobic workout indoors. One such type of aerobic exercise machine is an aerobic stepper, which often includes a box that facilitates the user stepping up and down for a workout. Other popular exercise machines that allow a user to perform aerobic exercises indoors include treadmills, rowing machines, stepper machines, and stationary bikes, to name a few.
One type of stepping device is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,533,948 issued to William T. Wilkinson, et al. In this reference, a combination exercise device includes a trampoline which has a peripheral frame and a resiliently mounted spring member secured to the frame with an upper surface upon which the user may jump. Feet are mounted to the frame for elevating the spring member. The exercise device also includes a horizontal rigid platform upon which the user may repeatedly step on and off in an aerobic exercise. The trampoline is selectively mounted with respect to the step so that the upper surface of the spring member of the trampoline is selectively disposed above the platform at a sufficient distance to permit the trampoline to be used while mounted over the spring member. In other stages of use the trampoline is removed from the step so that the step may be used in an exercise mode. Alternatively, the trampoline may be of a sufficiently small size that the step and trampoline could be permanently mounted together and both types of exercises could then be selectively performed. Other types of exercise machines are disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,645,510 issued to William T. Wilkinson, et al.; U.S. Pat. No. 7,520,840 issued to Tessema Dosho Shifferaw; and U.S. Pat. No. 8,323,154 issued to Mathieu Anthony Bolillo.